The Fear Index

here.’
    Leclerc’s mobile phone rang. It was in his jacket pocket. He couldn’t get at it through his damned rabbit suit. Irritably he unzipped the coveralls and pulled off his gloves. Moynier started to protest about contamination, but Leclerc turned his back on him. The caller was his assistant, young Lullin, who was still in the office. He said he had just been looking at the afternoon log. A psychiatrist, a Dr Polidori in Vernier, had called a couple of hours earlier about a patient of hers showing potentially dangerous schizophrenic symptoms – he had been in a fight, she said – but when the patrol got to her surgery he was gone. His name was Alexander Hoffmann. The psych didn’t have a recent address, but she had given a description.
    Leclerc said, ‘Did she mention whether he was carrying a computer?’
    There was a pause, a rustle of notes, and Lullin said, ‘How did you know that?’

    HOFFMANN, STILL CLUTCHING the crowbar, hurried up the steps from the basement to the ground floor, intent on raising the alarm about Rajamani. At the door to the lobby he stopped. Through the rectangular window he saw a squad of six black-uniformed gendarmes, guns drawn, jogging in heavy boots across the reception area towards the interior of the building; following them was the panting figure of Leclerc. Once they had passed through the turnstile, the exit was locked and two more armed police stationed themselves on either side of it.
    Hoffmann turned and clattered back down the steps and into the car park. The ramp up to the street was about fifty metres away. He headed for that. Behind him he heard the soft squeak of tyres turning on concrete and a large black BMW swung out of a parking bay, straightened and came towards him, headlights on. Without pausing to think, he stepped out in front of it, forcing it to stop, then ran around to the driver’s door and pulled it open.
    What an apparition the president of Hoffmann Investment Technologies must have presented by now – bloody, dusty, oil-smeared, clutching a metre-long crowbar. It was little wonder the driver couldn’t scramble out fast enough. Hoffmann threw the crowbar on to the passenger seat, put the automatic transmission into drive and pressed hard on the accelerator. The big car lurched up the ramp. Ahead, the steel door was just beginning to rise. He had to brake to let it open fully. In his rear-view mirror he could see the owner, transformed by adrenalin from fear into rage, marching up the ramp to protest. Hoffmann locked the doors. The man began pounding on the side window with his fist and shouting. Through the thick tinted glass he was muffled, subaqueous. The steel door opened fully and Hoffmann transferred his foot from the brake to the accelerator, overstepping it again in his anxiety to get away, kangarooing the BMW out across the pavement and swerving on two wheels into the empty one-way street.

    ON THE FIFTH floor, Leclerc and his arrest squad stepped out of the working elevator. He pressed the buzzer and looked up at the security camera. The usual receptionist had gone home for the evening. It was Marie-Claude who let them in. She put her hand to her mouth in dismay as the armed men rushed past her.
    Leclerc said, ‘I am looking for Dr Hoffmann. Is he here?’
    ‘Yes, of course.’
    ‘Will you take us to him, please?’
    She led them on to the trading floor. Quarry heard the commotion and turned round. He had been wondering what had happened to Hoffmann. He had assumed he was still with Rajamani and took his lengthening absence as a good sign: it would be better, on reflection, if their former chief risk officer could be persuaded not to try and shut them down at this critical moment. But when he saw Leclerc and the gendarmes, he knew their ship was sunk. Nevertheless, in the spirit of his forebears, he was determined to go down with dignity.
    He said calmly, ‘Can I help you, gentlemen?’
    ‘We need to speak to Dr Hoffmann,’ said Leclerc. He was swaying from left to right, standing on tiptoe, trying to spot the American among the astonished quants who were turning from their computer screens. ‘Will everyone please remain where they are?’
    Quarry said, ‘You must have just missed him. He stepped outside to speak to one of our executives.’
    ‘Outside the building? Outside where?’
    ‘I assumed he was just going out into the corridor …’
    Leclerc swore. He said to the nearest gendarmes: ‘You three, check these